JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure 15 – JoJo’s Bigamous Adventure

I feel like this is a sitcom in the making. “Joseph Joestar is a young Rippler on vacation in Rome, but one day he wakes up to find he’s married to two men! Oh, what wacky misadventures will our cocky cad get himself into this week! *laugh track*”

For serious, though, I love Joseph’s plan to keep himself alive for another day. I’m not a particular subscriber to honor in battle; short of being a complete dickhole and sacrificing myself to keep my sorry hide alive, I’d do whatever I could to keep myself breathing, even if it came off as cowardly. Joseph specifically appealing to Wham’s deeply embedded sense of honor? That’s smart, even if it is a complete bluff, as Joseph reveals in the next episode preview. Usually it’s the hero who’s a chump and let’s the villain walk away because of honor; I love it whenever the tables are turned.

But because this is JoJo and villains and heroes alike are ridiculously well-prepared, Wham has a trick up his sleeve in the form of his poisonous wedding ring. This at least mitigates the arrogance of giving Joseph an entire month to hone his abilities. A month in shonen anime is like 10 years in reality! Wham may as well escort Joseph to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber and wait outside for Joseph to beat the shit out of him. Ah well. I can’t underestimate Wham, though, since he tore through Caesar’s bubbles with such ease and then unveiled that ridiculous sandstorm power. And considering how much Wham looked down upon Joseph and Caesar in that initial skirmish, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had another power waiting in the wings, as well. I am steeling myself for a fuckin’ incredible battle when Joseph and Wham lock horns again.

Also I love AC/DC being all, “Yeah, I’ve got no beef with you, but fuck it, I’m gonna bind you to me just because. Bring it, asshole.” I really can’t wait to see what mad powers AC/DC and Cars will pull out of their hats. It will probably be a particularly long time before we see Cars do anything, too, because he’s shown himself to be someone who doesn’t act on whims. Even when Wham attacked him in the previous episode, Cars barely reacted; he simply talked it out and went on his way. Cars doesn’t dirty his hands unless it’s absolutely necessary. And why do it when Wham is so eager to battle that he throws down when someone steps on his shadow?

Getting back to Joseph here — how could anyone not love the man’s fighting style? It surprises me that Speedwagon is so incredulous about Joseph’s methods of feints and sleights of hand to get the advantage over a stronger a foe. That’s basically how Joseph has fought every battle in the series, though I suppose Speedwagon has been around for precious few of those. But, yes, this is another reason why I love Joseph: He plays the fool to great effect. Every battle we’ve seen so far has demonstrated that Joseph is a sharp thinker, well observant and excellent at improvisation. His every move is also precisely calculated to undermine his strengths on a surface level to gain an edge, even if it’s an enemy letting his guard down only the slightest bit. That’s what separates Joseph from Caesar right now. I bet Caesar is likely more advanced in the art of the Ripple from a pure power standpoint; however, Joseph makes up for that with keen observation and strategy. With some knowledge of Wham’s powers and personality, Joseph is able to formulate a strategy to keep everyone alive. It’s the same when Joseph battled Caesar in the previous episode. Give Joseph a bit of knowledge, and he’ll do a lot with it.

Just a couple of random things before I close this out: First, I really should have praised the sound direction of this series by now. (Unless I did before and forgot, which is a distinct possibility.) It’s not just the music and how it’s used that’s wonderful, but also the sound effects and how they add so much impact to the battles. My favorite, of course, is the one that sounds like everyone’s strikes are shattering the sound barrier. Every hit sounds so much more bone crunching when you have that ringing in your ears.

Secondly, I am SO looking forward to seeing this character, Lisa Lisa! Her namesake is Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, and I assume that she is the one who taught Caesar the ways of the Ripple from the sound of the episode preview. Also, she is voiced by Atsuko Tanaka aka the motherfuckin’ Major from Ghost in the Shell. She is already a 10/10 on the Cool Scale in my book!

Holy shit Lisa Lisa actually looks beautiful in the anime. In the manga, she looks okay, but they really touched her up in this. Oh I’ll never forget something else about her, but that’s a spoiler though. Been waiting for the Lisa Lisa part for ages.

From the random times I’ve perused the manga, I’ve noticed that Araki’s art has a harder edge to it than the anime art (even earlier on when it was a bit rougher than it is now). It’s definitely an interesting contrast to what I see week to week from David Production!

The sound effects worked particularly well during Wham’s Sandstorm ability. They really compliment both the power itself and the direction of battle.

Also, though this is becoming a little redundant in mention, the use of Roundabout once again fits perfectly with the scope of the episode as it leads into the next. It’s a long song, rises and falls, solos and build up: The part, first used in this episode, worked just as well as the others.

Roundabout was one of my favourite Yes songs before Jojo; I appreciate it more now with its dynamic and creative use as an ED.

Also, and maybe – probably – a stretch, but did ACDC swallow that dynamite in accordance with the song T.N.T. by the band in reference? The item seemed a little out of place, and it sat there burning for 3 or 4 minutes until ACDC playfully disposed it. Maybe… maybe.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: destroying the sanctity of marriage since 1988.

Oh god AC/DC’s power. Of all the gross things in the series… that’s the one that got me. It’s pretty awesome, though.

It says a lot about how impressive a character Joseph is that he can not only convince Wham to wait a month and fight him later, but that he even got AC/DC, who “had no beef with him”, to see him as a worthy opponent – not for pride, but because he was so taken by Joesph that he wanted to marr- er, umm… fight. him.

I got to this point of the manga at the airport waiting for my delayed flight home for Thanksgiving, and when I reached the part where Joesph does his whole playing-dead thing, I couldn’t hold back the giggle fit and got a few funny looks from people.

And of course, we got treated to so many FABULOUS pillar man poses this week. Especially that one with the three of them posing together, and the one with Wham and the bubbles. Glorious.

Truer words have never been spoken. This is one of the reasons why I love Jojo:It’s unpredictable as far as the survival chances of the characters is concerned. Anyone–may it be a major character or a minor one— can die.

Jojo hits Wham with massive balls of steel. Wham is so impressed by Jojo’s balls that he proposes gay marriage to our hero. AC/DC, not content with just watching the Wham on Jojo action, decides to stick his own thing into Jojo.

I think it was a given that Stardust Crusader would be included in this season, if we think about it a bit. Phantom Blood was done in 9 episodes. Battle Tendency would be done in around that much too, 9 or 10 I would assume. And maybe they could fit in half of Stardust Crusader for the rest of it, since this is kind of long compared to the first two arc. At least that’s what I would think to happen, based on the info in MAL.

I’m hoping they’ll use the rest of this season to cover Battle Tendency and save Stardust for season 2. There’s just so much epic stuff still left that there’s no way they’ll be able fit it all into just a 3-4 more episodes.

Umm, I just watched the GG fansub of this, think I’ve watched mostly nutbladder’s. Anyway, what gives? Text was all alliteration and needlessly arcane. Was Wham speaking in verse or are all the recent Jojo eps subbed by GG total crap? Someone please tell me if I need to avoid these.

I enjoy the gg subs because they are ridiculous and silly and didn’t enjoy the Nutbladder subs because they felt sloppy. I do hear, however, that the Muda Muda Muda subs are good and accurate if you want to go that route. I haven’t watched them, though, so my information is secondhand.

This and only this. Because why not just up the ante on the ridiculous for such a ridiculous series? It’s not like I’d lose much info on it anyways by not being accurate. GG is the best subs for this, because it enhances the ridiculous nature of the anime.

Go for Muda Muda Muda or BuddyWaters for speedsubs. I tried GG too because BuddyWaters and Muda Muda Muda have not released their versions yet and I found it awful. GG has this habit of adding/changing lines.

GG ftw here. Their JBA subs are without a doubt the best fansubs I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching, because their ridiculousness only adds to the ridiculousness that is Jojo to make it even better. That said, I wouldn’t want this kind of treatment on most other anime, and indeed this is, afaik, the only show they’ve done it on.

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